


It's Magic, You Know

by Caitlinlaurie



Series: The Multiple Ballads of Tony and Meredith [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age of Ultron, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Asgardian Magic, F/M, Infinity Stones, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, The Time Stone, Time Travel, Tony Stark is Peter Quill's Father, Tony does the time travel thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 12:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3650520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caitlinlaurie/pseuds/Caitlinlaurie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark's soulmark went gray in 1988. </p><p>It became black again in 1979. </p><p>Yeah, it's complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Magic, You Know

_Fucking Thor_ , Tony thought as he face-planted into the cold, icy ground. _Fucking Asgardians and their stupid, fucking magical tech_. He sat up, pain immediately began radiating down his left arm. For one brief moment, Tony thought he might be having a heart attack, but then the agony coalesced at his shoulder, and Tony realized that he wasn’t…his arm just happened to be dangling out of its socket. Tony took deep shuddering breaths, one after another, and then with a jerk, forced the arm back where it came from. It wasn’t the first time it had happened. One of the guards in Afghanistan had seen to that, but Tony couldn’t help the cry of pain he let out anyway. It was only when the pain began to recede that Tony realized that his cry had echoed in the night.

Looking around, Tony gaped at the change in landscape. Just like the time Tony had ended up in Rose Hill, Tennessee while on the search for the Mandarin, he once again found himself in the middle of a wide wilderness, in winter, shivering from the cold. He had landed in an open field, bordered on three sides by trees, and on the far side by a one-lane road. 

Digging in his pocket, Tony pulled out his Stark-phone, immediately dialing Bruce. The call didn’t even connect. Tony pulled back, looking at the phone and saw that he didn’t even have signal. “This isn’t happening,” Tony muttered. “What the hell is the point in paying for the most advanced network of satellites ever if you still can’t even get a signal if you step outside New York?” He tried again, but still no signal. 

Tony sighed, forcing himself up. His neoprene undershirt kept most of the cold at bay, and his cargo pants were lined with the stuff too, so at least this time he didn’t need to steal a poncho from a wooden Indian. He hoped. 

Once he was standing, Tony realized that the one-lane road wasn’t a lane at all, but rather a country road that seemed to lead down to a highway. He sighed, and began walking. Tony’s tennis shoes crunched in the snow as he made his way across the icy field, ducking under the wooden fence, and stepping out onto the lane. Whatever that tech had been, it had somehow transported him back to the countryside. Tony was certain that Clint’s farm had to be somewhere nearby. 

So he walked. When he hit the end of the lane, he found a two-lane highway that didn’t look at all familiar. Still, it was nighttime, and Tony knew he had only seen Clint’s farm in the day, and only the once. The blond archer had said there was a town off the highway, so Tony mentally flipped a coin and began walking north. Cars passed him, but Tony didn’t bother sticking his thumb up. He didn’t want any company at the moment, or to deal with any star-struck hicks.

In an effort to distract himself from the ever encroaching cold, Tony tried make sense of what had happened as he walked, still checking his phone every few minutes for a signal. 

It all began when they had regrouped at the Tower. When Thor had returned from his vision quest, or whatever, he had been carrying a small box that contained something that looked very much like a canary diamond set in a necklace. The Asgardian had said it would be the key to defeating Ultron, and then no more, stepping to the side of the workshop to talk in hushed voices to Steve. Bruce had been looking at the box suspiciously, keeping a wide berth between himself and the necklace, but Tony had been curious. He had reached out, touching the chain only and lifting the necklace from its container. 

The gem had gleamed in the light. The facets of the stone had shimmered and sparkled as Tony looked at it, and he had felt drawn to the damn thing, but not enough to touch it. Tony wasn’t a moron, current apocalyptic robot events to the contrary, and he had not been planning on doing anything. It would have been fine, had Tony not seen Thor charging at him from across the workshop. In his haste to put the necklace back in the box, and therefore avoid a repeat throttling, the stone had brushed against Tony’s bare skin, and then…nothing. The next thing he knew he was fifteen feet above the ground and falling, hitting the icy, snowy ground in the middle of nowhere. 

Tony sighed. 

He could see why Thor thought the necklace could be useful. If there was some way to control the location of the teleportation, and they could get it to touch Ultron’s now vibranium-coated skeleton, well…they could send the damn robot off into a supernova or into a black hole. Tony wasn’t crazy about being the guinea pig, but he did sort of figure that it was no less than he deserved after everything. Still, would it have fucking killed Thor to say, Oh by the way, this is an Asgardian teleportation device, and it will send you to the bumfuck of nowhere if you touch it.

 _Fucking Thor_.

Tony kept up a long and inventive stream of mental abuse towards the absent Norse god while he walked to the town he could now see in the distance. It looked as though the two-lane road/highway continued across a bridge, over a huge river, and wasn’t that just peachy? As he got closer, the woods tapered and thinned and revealed little homes tucked in their eaves. Rolling hills with snow fields and distant houses dotted the landscape behind Tony, as far as the eye could see, but in front of him was a small town tucked up against a huge river. And, once Tony had crossed the bridge and was moving through the quiet streets, Tony realized he had misjudged the town. It was clearly bigger than he had thought, and nicer than that backwater Rose Hill. This place had a main street with Victorian buildings, with houses and business branching off little alleys and lanes. Much of it was covered in snow, which had been deceiving to his eyes from the distance, but Tony breathed a happy sigh of relief when he saw that there were plenty of restaurants, a hotel or two, some bars, and even a sign for a hospital. This would do fine until he could get Natasha or Clint to bring the quinjet to come pick him up. 

Once he got into the town proper, and was walking down the Main Street, Tony couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something was…off. People were mostly bundled up against the cold, and aside from some odd looks at his neoprene, nothing really stood out, but Tony couldn’t help the feeling. It looked like any country town in the sticks. There were old cars and little mom and pop stores, and not much else. Tony was a bit weirded out when he passed the electronics store and saw that they had decades-old TVs in the window, but he shook his head. Must be a place that refurbished old TVs. Tony didn’t imagine there was much demand for flat screens in a little town.

He ducked into the first bar he saw. Tony made his way through the crowd and to the phone in the back, looking only slightly over the people in the bar. When had feathered hair made a comeback? He shook his head, pulling the phone off the hook. He reached into his pocket for fifty cents, only to blink in surprise when he saw that it was only twenty cents to use the phone. Tony shrugged, putting in the twenty cents and dialing Bruce’s number. Tony immediately got the pre-recorded phone company message that the number was incorrect. After a second attempt at getting the same message, Tony dialed zero for the operator.

“Operator.”

“Yeah, I need you to connect me to 646-555-9256,” Tony said into the receiver. 

“I’m sorry, that is not a valid area code,” the operator replied, her thick Midwest accent audible through the line. “What area are you trying to reach?”

“Manhattan, but it is a cell phone.”

“A what phone?”

“A cell-u-lar phone,” Tony said slowly into the receiver, enunciating the syllables of the word. “You know what, just forget it. Connect me to 917-555-2159.” He could call Pepper, instead. He knew she had to be working out of the Stark offices late, as she always was. Happy was bound to be there too, waiting for his redheaded soulmate to get off work. 

“I’m sorry, sir, but that is also not a valid area code.” The woman on the other end sounded testy now, as if she thought Tony was purposefully wasting her time. “If you want to make a call to Manhattan, the only area code is 212. Now, are you going to make a call or not?”

Tony turned around slowly, taking in the bar in full now. He looked carefully at all the people he had mentally scorned before, taking in their velour shirts and bellbottom pants. The women almost all had their hair feathered or teased, and the make-up was bright and vivid. “Hooked on a Feeling” was playing from the jukebox, and not one person was on a cell phone. Tony mentally went through all the cars he saw on the street, and realized that he had not seen one made after the 1970s. His breath started coming in stutters and stops. Tony hadn’t had a panic attack since he had the shrapnel pulled from his chest, but he well remembered what they felt like. The phone receiver dropped from his numb hand, and Tony stumbled into the men’s room. 

Splashing cold water on his face made Tony feel no better, but he forced himself to breathe. After several minutes, once Tony had control over himself once more, he forced himself to leave the room and make his way to the bar. Once he had, he flagged down the bartender. It was an older man, mid-sixties if Tony was guessing right, and the billionaire tried to keep himself from panicking when he saw the World War II navy tattoo on the bartender’s bicep. 

“You got a paper?”

The barkeep didn’t even try to charge him, just nodded and slid it from under the bar. Tony opened up the thing, and there, just under HANNIBAL COURIER-POST, the date sat in small, innocuous numbers. Tony left the bar, stumbling to a booth in the back. He plopped down in the bench seat, his head falling into his hands.

 _December 3rd, 1979_. 

Tony forced his brain to keep working, and pushed the panic he felt away. Okay, so Thor’s plan had been to displace Ultron in time, not space, and Tony was totally fucked. He was in Missouri, of all places, and it was 1979. The money in his pocket might as well be monopoly money for all the good it would do him, his cell phone was a bust, all he had was the clothes on his back, and absolutely no way to return home. 

Home.

Tony’s heart suddenly started thudding in his chest, but this time it was not from panic. It was excitement. His parents, they were still alive. He could go to them, and since they were SHIELD, they would know all about aliens and from there, time travel wasn’t that far off. If he could just convince them that he was their son, his dad could help him build a device to get him back to 2015. 

His dad…Tony couldn’t even comprehend what that would be like. As adults, as equals, he could finally meet and know his dad. And his mom…Tony hardly allowed himself to think of his mother, ever really. The pain of thinking about her—it just made her loss too intense, so Tony tried to avoid any reminders of her all together. Howard, him Tony could talk about, bitch about, mourn, and regret constantly. The same could not be said for his mother. Tony had loved her, absolutely and completely, and her death had left nothing but a hole behind, both in his life and heart. And now he could see her again.

Tony sat back, letting his head fall back against the bench seat. His eyes drifted closed. Relief, agony, panic, and happiness all warred within him, and it was all Tony could do to force himself to take deep breaths in and out. 

“Hey there, angel. No offense, but you look like you’ve been ridden hard and put away wet.”

Tony opened his mouth to make a scathing reply, just has he had the hundreds of other times those words had been spoken to him, but then his brain caught up with him. Tony shut his mouth, and opened his eyes. Blood was rushing in his ears as Tony took in the woman before him. She had long reddish brown hair, and kind hazel eyes that were looking at him with concern. She was beautiful, but then Tony had always known that she would be. 

“Mer!” the bartender called, causing the woman to turn. He shouted something that Tony wasn’t paying attention to. The genius heard nothing, saw nothing…nothing but her. No detail was too small, from her Keds to her flared jeans, and white t-shirt with the name “DUKES” stretched across her breasts in bright red letters. He took in the lines of her nose and the shape of her full lips. He read “MEREDITH” off her name tag, silently saying the name to himself over and over again, convinced it was the most beautiful name in the world. Tony watched her tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, and listened to the breathy sound of her laughter at whatever the bartender said. By the time she had refocused on Tony, the billionaire had memorized every visible inch of her.

“Sorry about that,” she said in that midwestern twang. “What can I get you, angel?”

 _You_ , Tony almost said, his mouth forming around the word. He wanted so much to speak, to say the words that she had probably been waiting to hear all her life, but Tony couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t do that to her. 

So he shook his head and stood. Leaving the newspaper on the table, he stepped around Meredith and made his way to the door. Tony allowed himself one glance back, only one. Meredith was still standing where he left her, a look of confusion on her face. Their eyes connected for one brief moment, and it took all the strength he had to force himself to look away.

Tony stepped out of the bar, and back into the cold night. Absentmindedly, he rubbed his left hand over his right forearm where his soulmark had been written in gray since the late 80s. Stopping under a streetlight, Tony pulled back his sleeve. Crouching over, Tony picked up a handful of snow, rubbing it over his forearm and washing off the mark concealer that Tony had worn for over twenty-six years. Once his arm was clear, his soulmark, now a vivid black, looked back at him.

_Hey there, angel. No offense, but you look like you’ve been ridden hard and put away wet._

Tony couldn’t even begin to count the number of women who had said those words to him over the years, ever since paparazzi had snapped a shirtless picture of him during Spring Break 1987, which subsequently got printed in the New York Post. It had gotten even worse once the internet got going and everyone in the world could look up his soulmark with the click of a button. Tony had tried not to let it get to him, and he had never even bothered get his hopes up. 

What the general public didn’t know was that the words on Tony’s arm had been gray since January 12th, 1988. His soulmate had died when Tony was eighteen, and he had spent years, almost two decades, drinking and sleeping around, all in an effort of trying to come to grips with that. So every time some gold-digger had tried to say the words to him, either hoping Tony was too drunk to notice, or because they had some simple mark like “Hi,” Tony had made a special effort to be as scathing and brutally mean as possible in reply. He had made more people cry over saying the words of his soulmark than anything else. 

Some slights he was able to tolerate, but not that. 

It had been his mother’s belief that he had met his soulmate when he was a child, and simply didn’t remember, or it was before he understood the significance of the words. Certainly no one would ever have called Tony an angel past the age of four, which had led credence to his mother’s idea. Howard hadn’t had much of an opinion on it, but he deferred to his wife’s thoughts on the matter. When the words went gray, well, it was once of the few times that Tony felt as though his dad did everything right. He and his dad had both taken a week off work, as had his mother, and the three of them had sat shiva on the floor of their New York mansion. To this very day, Tony was still surprised that his father seemed to know all the right things to say, and all the things that Tony needed to hear. Howard had talked about Tony’s lost soulmate as if he had known her, telling Tony how brave and kind she had been, and how perfect she had been for Tony. When his parents had died three years later, it had been that one single week in 1988 that made it possible for Tony to mourn his father genuinely, and without complete bitterness. 

After that, Tony had worn long sleeves and mark concealer daily. Even though he had been photographed shirtless, and even naked a time or two, the paparazzi had never gotten another photo of his soulmark, so the world at large still thought that Tony Stark was looking for his soulmate. And Tony had simply never confirmed that he wasn’t. Rhodey knew, but he was the only one. At their son’s request, Howard hadn’t told anyone he worked with, not even Obadiah, and neither had Tony’s mother. Tony himself had never told Pepper and Happy, not wanting the matched couple’s sympathy. None of the Avengers knew, and when the SHIELD files had leaked to the general public, Tony had looked to see if there was a notation on his mark in his file. There wasn’t. 

He tried to ignore the voice chanting in his head, to go back, to find her again. She had less that ten years left, and Meredith didn’t deserve to spend them wondering. But Tony couldn’t force himself to be that selfish. He was leaving. The second he got to New York, he and Howard would have to start work on something to get him back to the present. Ultron was his responsibility, and Tony couldn’t turn his back on that, no matter how much he wanted to. 

Tony began to shiver, the cold air finally biting through the neoprene. He clapped his hands together, blowing warm air through his fingers. It was cold, and it was only going to get colder, but Tony figured if he headed back to the highway, he could get some trucker to pick him up. He had to get to New York to see his parents.

When Tony saw his father again, he planned to tell the senior Stark that they had yet one more thing in common. They were the only two people Tony had ever heard of who had met their soulmates and…not told their soulmate who they were. 

He walked for what seemed like hours, the cold biting in more and more. Every now and then, Tony would force himself into a jog, just to keep his temperature up. He stuck up his thumb in the air, but no one stopped. Tony couldn’t really blame them. What kind of idiot walked in winter without a coat?

In the end, when a rusty pickup truck pulled to the side of the road and put its hazard lights on, Tony ran toward it with a sort of resigned expectancy. Sure enough, when he opened the door, Meredith stared back at him, a warm smile on her face.

Tony smirked, shaked his head, and sighed. “I should have known you would be the one to stop.”

She gasped. “You’re…you’re…”

“Tony, nice to meet you. Can I get in?”

She nodded silently.

Tony climbed in the truck, slamming the door behind him and immediately becoming enveloped in the warmth of the cab. He held his hands up to the vents, which were going full blast. They sat there for a while; Meredith made no move to pull back onto the highway.

“You didn’t say anything,” Meredith finally murmured several minutes later. 

He was feeling warm now, and the painful sensation of his blood circulating again was nearly gone. Tony simply felt tired. Ultron, the Maximoff twins, and now time travel and his soulmate. He was certain that he had lost the talent for glibness somewhere along the way.

“Trust me,” Tony said, his voice raspy. “You don’t want to get mixed up with me. I was doing you a favor.”

Meredith’s eyes narrowed. “Well don’t do me anymore favors, okay? I can take care of myself.” She then poked him in the chest. “Let me see your words.”

Tony laughed, though it was a rusty thing. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

As he rolled up the sleeve of his neoprene, Meredith unwound the scarf from around her neck and pulled the neck of her t-shirt down. There, tracing over the tops of each breast and dipping into the space between, his words lay on her like a brand. He reached out, following the ‘m’ shaped pattern with his finger. 

“You want to explain to me why the words were grey until nine years ago, and yet here you are, a fully grown adult?” Meredith’s head was tilted to the side, her frown puzzled.

Tony had never thought about it from the other way around. It was strange to think that she had lived a part of her life without him too. 

“It’s a long story,” Tony said.

“Well, where are you headed?” Meredith asked. “You can tell me along the way.”

“New York.”

“New York?” Meredith repeated calmly. “All right then, but we better stop by my place first so that we can get some supplies. You can borrow my daddy’s coat.”

Tony shook his head. It figured that she would have a soulmate that was simply not fazed by his craziness. 

“We never did introduce ourselves,” Meredith said, apropos of nothing as the truck pulled back onto the highway.

“Tony, Tony Stark.”

“Well, Tony, Tony Stark, my name is Meredith Quill and it is mighty fine to meet you.” 

She then reached over to the dash, and pushed the eight-track tape into the player. Within moments, the sounds of Pilot’s “Magic” filled the car. 

“You don’t mind the music, do you?”

**Author's Note:**

> James Gunn is entirely to blame for this.
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/jgunn/photos/pb.48103536156.-2207520000.1427768473./10152370402386157/?type=3&theater
> 
> The fic needed to be written.


End file.
